Vince Guaraldi Leads a Jazzy Trio in A Charlie Brown Christmas

Last night, I arrived home from work just in time to catch A Charlie Brown Christmas on ABC. We have the special on DVD, but there’s something extra special about watching it at a time when you know millions of other people are watching it too. I sat down on the couch and let the refreshing simplicity of the special wash over me. With that fresh in my mind, I decided it was past time to listen to the Charlie Brown Christmas soundtrack I borrowed from the library a while back. Listening to the soothing melodies of the Vince Guaraldi Trio - with composer Guaraldi on the piano, Monty Budwig on the bass and Colin Bailey on the drums - is a perfect way to spend 40 minutes on a dreary winter day.

O Tannenbaum begins as a fairly straightforward reading of the traditional carol on the piano, but then the bass and drums join in and the piano takes on a jazzy quality before going off on a melodic tangent that only occasionally seems to have any direct similarity to the tune. Gradually, the loud brightness of the midsection fades into a much softer tone, recalling Charlie Brown and Linus bypassing all the flashy trees for the humble little bent-over pine.

What Child is This takes a moment to become recognizable, but once it does, it is more straightforward than the previous track, with just the occasional change to the rhythm and little alteration to the melody until the song nears the two-minute mark. At that point, it goes off in a different direction, ending the song in rather unfamiliar territory.

Hark, the Herald Angels Sing features so-soft-it’s-barely-audible organ music as the children hum the melody. Then the accompaniment grows louder as the children switch over to singing, concluding the track with a nice bit of high harmony.

Fur Elise, the shortest track, is the Beethoven song so readily associated with piano prodigy Schroeder. Just the piano here, and no fancy flourishes. Though it doesn’t quite fit with the style of most of the tracks, as a musical representation of Schroeder, it’s perfect.

The Christmas Song allows Guaraldi more opportunity to have fun with the piano. Though he doesn’t stray far from the basic tune, he plays it with a jazzy flair, with a bit of soft help now and then from the bass and a big dramatic finish.

Greensleeves is the final track on the album and the longest of the “traditional” tracks. Just before the two-minute mark, it ceases to sound much like Greensleeves and becomes an opportunity for Guaraldi to play around on the piano, though hints of the tune return from time to time, as well as possible nods to other songs. Around the three and a half minute mark, the basic melody returns, for the most part, for the remainder of the song.

My Little Drum gives credit to Guaraldi instead of merely noting that he did the arrangement, but this song, which also features some very soft background vocals by children, is quite obviously a riff on The Little Drummer Boy.

Christmas Time Is Here appears in two forms. The first is purely instrumental, while the second features the voices of young children. This song is one of the two most recognized songs from the special. It evokes innocence and simple childhood pleasures, like a line of children skating across a frozen pond. The instrumental version is twice as long as the other, but I think I prefer it to the vocal version. I’ve always found something slightly creepy about all those high voices singing this together. Also, I love how at the end of the instrumental version, the piano imitates the mandolin. “Christmas time is here / Happiness and cheer / Fun for all, what children call the greatest time of year.”

Skating captures the whimsy of Snoopy and the children as they glide, sometimes gracefully, sometimes not. Toward the middle the track gets an almost country flavor to it, while the melody reminds me a bit of Pure Imagination from Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory.

Christmas Is Coming is a bit louder than most of the tracks, focusing on the energy of anticipation. It’s the last of the original Guaraldi compositions on the album, and it shifts tone a couple of times to encompass different reactions to the holiday.

By far the most iconic track on the album is Linus and Lucy, which is synonymous not only with A Charlie Brown Christmas but with Charlie Brown, period. I hear the lively piano tune in my head when I read Peanuts comic books or even just the strip in the Sunday paper. Poor Charlie Brown gets cheated out of his own theme song, with the supporting Van Pelts stealing the limelight from him; somehow, that seems very fitting! Like most of the tracks here, it deviates from the main melody a couple of times, but that just makes me appreciate it all the more when it comes back. I like the tune so much that it’s the only ringtone I’ve ever had on my cell phone. It’s a lucky thing my phone doesn’t ring much, since listening to Schroeder pound away on that piano makes me want to get up and dance like Snoopy.

That’s the kind of reaction Ralph J. Gleason describes in his liner notes when he talks about the difficulty of paying homage to someone else’s artistic expression with art of one’s own. “He took his inspiration from the creations of Charles Schulz and made music that reflects that inspiration, is empathetic with the image and is still solidly and unmistakably Vince Guaraldi,” Gleason writes. How very true. I can’t hear this music without thinking of Charlie Brown, and I can’t think of Charlie Brown without hearing this music.

Linus Learns the Pitfalls and Triumphs of Campaigning in You're Not Elected, Charlie Brown

One of my favorite Halloween traditions is watching It's the Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown. We have the special on tape, but there's something extra-special about snuggling in to watch it with the rest of America on network television. Just to make it more of an event, the special is often coupled with a second; this year, it was You're Not Elected, Charlie Brown, which has more in common with the Halloween special than one might think.

While Great Pumpkin takes place primarily on Halloween itself, You're Not Elected is set slightly earlier in October, making it seasonally appropriate for Halloween, as well as upcoming Election Day. Nobody seems to be paying much attention to that this year, but when it ran last year, it seemed especially fitting. Both specials focus primarily on Linus, which surprised me a bit the first time I watched this. Given the title, I figured it would focus on Charlie Brown's attempts to get elected. But while he briefly considers running, he abandons any thought of candidacy when Lucy's early poll reveals a complete lack of support. Linus has a much better shot, if only because Lucy is more eager to threaten physical violence on her brother's behalf, so Linus is the one stuck in the spotlight while his sister and friends campaign to get him as much recognition as possible.

You're Not Elected offers some sly commentary on the political process, emphasizing the importance of publicity and strong oratory skills and the dangers of mixing politics and religion. It's no surprise that precocious Linus is a gifted speaker, and one particularly rousing speech recalls Marc Antony's "Friends, Romans, countrymen" spiel. But when he lets his passion for the Great Pumpkin leak into his platform... Well, that's problematic. What's more, Schulz seems to speak through disillusioned Sally when she declares that campaigns are nothing but empty promises and that once elected, officials are bound to just sell out to The Man.

Lucy is her usual abrasive self in this special, but she channels her energy in positive directions, and she and Charlie Brown make a surprisingly good team. Meanwhile, there's a recurring bit with Snoopy, in his Joe Cool guise, trying to pass himself off as a member of the student body. He even has his own jazzy theme song performed by Vince Guaraldi to match the persona. Those scenes aren't as dynamic as his Flying Ace fantasies, and it's strange to have all the action taking place at school, so detached from the landmarks of Charlie Brown's yard. But his contributions are always fun. Other characters like Sally, Schroeder and Violet have minor roles to play.

This special came out in 1972, seven years after the first, so it's not the original Charlie Brown voice cast, but they all sound convincing in their roles, especially Stephen Shea, who took over the role of Linus for his brother Christopher. The special ends rather abruptly, and in a different way than I might have expected. But it feels like an appropriate ending, one of mingled triumph and defeat. Every accomplishment in the Peanuts world seems to come tinged with disappointment, every let-down with a silver lining. Linus is probably my favorite of the human Peanuts characters, so I was happy to root for him for half an hour, even though he'd spent the half hour before it waiting fruitlessly for the Great Pumpkin. Win or lose, it's rewarding to watch Linus and his supporters make the effort.

The Boy Named Charlie Brown Is No Failure Face

I'm a big fan of Peanuts, so when Netflix directed me to a Charlie Brown film I'd never seen, and a full-length one at that, I was excited. At first, when I received A Boy Named Charlie Brown in the mail, I thought the movie might be something along the lines of a cartoon version of the stage musical, You're a Good Man, Charlie Brown. But while that play gives all the characters equal time and is more a series of vignettes than an actual story, this film has a very definite plot, and Charlie Brown (Peter Robbins) has a larger role to play in it than anyone else, with the possible exception of Linus (Glenn Gilger).

One of Charlie Brown's most endearing qualities is his tendency toward lousy luck. It's easy for us to see ourselves in this boy who can't get his kite in the air or work up the nerve to talk to the little red-haired girl. But it doesn't seem fair for this good-hearted lad to fall flat on his face time and again. Surely even the blockhead with the jagged stripe on his shirt ought to have a genuine shot at glory. Charles Schulz must have thought so, too, because in this movie, we find that Charlie Brown is actually good at something. It turns out that he has a knack for spelling. He has such a knack, in fact, that he makes it all the way to the National Spelling Bee.

I never would have figured Charlie Brown, who has such trouble getting through letters to his pen pal, for a literary ace, but it seems to have been a latent talent. Once he discovers it, he does everything he can to nurture it, largely for the sake of his friends, who are quickly caught up in the excitement. He even comes up with a song that might prove helpful to those who struggle with spelling. Then again, as someone who once participated in a citywide spelling bee, I understand Charlie Brown's frustration in poring over long lists of words; this movie does nothing to glamorize the process and could scare some kids off when they see the way the preparations can overtake one's life.

I found the main storyline extremely engaging, along with a subplot involving Linus lending Charlie Brown his security blanket and then going through extreme withdrawal symptoms after a short time without it. His pain is evident in his appearance, as he is shaky, clammy and discolored, but its most memorable manifestation is in the subversion of the peppy Linus and Lucy tune, turning it into a minor-key dirge whenever Linus appears onscreen without his beloved blanket. I'm also a fan of the sappy theme song written and sung by Rod McKuen, though I find the other songs he penned a bit grating, especially the taunting Failure Face.

What I could have done without in the special are several extremely trippy montages that reminded me a bit of some of the scarier animated segments in Sesame Street history. They don't serve much of a purpose, and the series of flashing images is headache-inducing. These diversions occur mainly in the first half of the film, before the focus turns almost entirely to Charlie Brown's studies and Linus's struggles. I doubt Schulz had much to do with them, as they're entirely lacking in dialogue or plot; they're just an excuse for Bill Melendez to show off some fancy animation and Vince Guaraldi to expand his jazzy score. Some will probably find these segments appealing, but for me, they dragged the movie down a bit.

Still, if you're a Charlie Brown fan, you'll definitely want to check this out to see how much triumph the perpetual loser will be allowed. Despite a few ironic twists, A Boy Named Charlie Brown leaves one with a feeling of optimism. If Charlie Brown can suffer the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune and still press on, why not the rest of us?